The city of Los Angeles sued a local reporter and a police watchdog group Wednesday in hopes of recovering photos of undercover police officers the city said it inadvertently released last year, broadcast reports said.
The lawsuit alleges that reporter Benjamin Camacho, who works for local nonprofit newsroom Knock LA; as well as several other defendants — including the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition and 50 other unnamed “Does” — are “willfully exposing to the public the identities of (LAPD) officers” on the Watch the Watchers website.
In the lawsuit, the city claimed Camacho furnished the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition and the other defendants with the information he received from the city last year. The Watch the Watchers website includes officers’ photographs, badge numbers, hiring dates and other information.
The initial public records request was made by Camacho in 2021 and asked for “[T]he most up-to-date roster of LAPD names, badge numbers, serial numbers, division, sworn status. The department headshot photos of all of the same officers referenced above,” the lawsuit said.
But Camacho did not obtain that information until September of last year — after his attorneys filed against LAPD last May for closing down his initial request without disclosing a single photograph, claiming it would be an undue burden, according to a 2022 lawsuit.
“Petitioner (Camacho) hopes to use personnel headshot photographs to help ensure public accountability for LAPD officers who try to evade identification, especially while engaging in misconduct,” the 2022 lawsuit said. “LAPD has in recent years received several documented misconduct complaints regarding officers either obscuring their nameplates or shining lights in the faces of journalists, watchdogs, and protestors who were filming the officers performing their official duties.”
While Camacho legally obtained the photographs through a California Public Records Act Request in 2022, the city did not…
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